Your desires will lead you to your purpose, I could even say to your destiny, but that can sound a little threatening, so I won’t.
I talk to many women who’re looking for their purpose. They want to know what they were meant to do and they feel that if they knew, they could be happy and fulfilled. The good news is that you can allow yourself to feel happy right now and that this will get you on course for your deepest desires, for your purpose, for your destiny if you believe in such a concept.
All it takes is for you to follow your pleasure. Doesn’t that just sound too good to be true? Before I explain the deeper concepts here, let me just illustrate with a personal example.
My dream château in the south of France
In my case, I desire to live in a château in the south of France. I want to be able to share this space with women who’re on a self-love journey and want to experience a self-love retreat.
I haven’t yet got a château but
1. I’m already living in the south of France
2. I’m living in a mansion
so I believe I’m off to a very good start.
I allowed myself to follow my desires by moving to the south of France. Following your desires isn’t always pleasant and we rarely make it easy.
When I moved to France, I wasn’t aware of what I wanted to create (a space to teach self-love in beautiful surroundings), but I followed what gave me pleasure. Not immediate pleasure because being on my own without the possibility of communicating meaningfully with people around me wasn’t always a joy: I had to learn French first.
I said I live in a mansion and that is because I allowed myself to follow my desire once more. I bought a ruin and did it up. That wasn’t always a pure delight, but it is now.
So this is what following your desire looks like:
You listen to what gives you pleasure and you take action to have more of it even though this is not easy and sometimes scary.
For me this is easy because I know what I want (a château) and I know how to create pleasure (yes, I’m a pleasure seeker). In order to feel more pleasure right now, short of buying a château and moving there today, I can ask myself: how can I have more of the experience of living in a château? In other words, how can I feel more pleasure right now without actually possessing the château?
If you look at desire or pleasure as an energy. As all energies, you have to create it, desire energy. If I imagine that energy is like money, I can create $1000 of energy to spend. How can I create it?
To find out, I want to make sure that all the energy I’m creating is going towards what I want, that it is not seeping out, that there aren’t any leaks. Two questions come in handy here:
1. I can ask myself what I am tolerating right now that is out of alignment with my desire. This will show me where energy is leaking out.
And boom, I don’t have to wait around a lot to find an answer!
In my château example, I have the notion that there are not a lot of things lying around in a beautiful château. I believe I would like for my château to be rather pristine. This is the perfect opportunity for me to do some clutter clearing. I notice that I’m getting ever so slightly annoyed by the what we have left lying around in the hall since we came back from our recent bike trip across France. (If you haven’t seen the pictures, please find me on social media @katrinehorncoaching
Clearing up the hall is an easy way of immediately transforming a toleration situation into a pleasure situation. Once I clear up the hall I can stop lending energy to the mess. I can stop feeling annoyed every time I come into the hall and replace that feeling with one of pleasure. If I can’t quite create “pleasure”, I can at least make sure that the mess is not draining my energy.
2. I can also ask myself what I want more of. What would be in alignment with my desire for a château? This is creating more desire energy.
As we’re just back from our trip, there are no fresh flowers inside! With another lockdown happening in France, I can’t buy or send for flowers but fortunately, I’ve been in the habit of following my desires for a while so during out last lockdown episode, I started a flower garden, believing that all châteaux have one.
We’re beginning of November so chances of any flowers outside a hothouse are pretty slim. But being curious, I made a trip into my flower garden and was rewarded beyond my wildest expectations! I was able to pick 2 roses for my office desk and a beautiful bouquet of snapdragons.
Fortunately I sowed these when we were in lockdown first time around and now I get to reap the benefits (and this beautifully illustrates that you reap what you sow!).
So without knowing exactly what your desire is, what your ultimate dream or goal is, you can start following your pleasure. Ask yourself:
- What am I tolerating?
- What do I want more of?
Using jealousy to create clarity
If you’re totally in the dark about what you desire, fortunately you probably have experienced jealousy. Jealousy can guide you to what you most desire. Be honest, look at who you’re jealous of and why. Are you thinking:
“It’s alright for Katrine; she’s living in the south of France, picking flowers in her flower garden, with no care in the world.”
What is it that you really want here? The flowers? The garden? A place for you? No care in the world? Feel into it and let your desire guide you. What holds more energy for you?
Where does your desire energy go?
If you could cultivate a little more awareness about where you do spend your energy, you might find that you’re not spending it on your desires. You might be spending it on avoiding what you don’t like. You might be spending it on buffering with too much food, drink, television, work, shopping… Imagine if all the energy you spend avoiding being bored, frustrated, scared could be used for your desires?
What if your energy was all fuelled in the same direction?
Imagine your energy as the $1000 I talked about. Where is it seeping out? What if you spent it towards what gives you pleasure in the long term, not buffering, seeking only to escape something disagreeable in the short term.
Most of us spend our energy on what is available. This includes food, drink, shopping, television etc. If you took your particular kind of buffering away, you’d be left with a lot of reality to face and this can feel scary.
So if your kind of buffering was no longer available, where would you be spending this energy? Ask yourself what it is about yourself that you’re not enjoying?
If you can stare that it in the face without going into judgement and recrimination, excuses and avoiding feeling scared, then you’re onto something. This could very well be what could transform your life.
What if you started “going towards” what you desire instead of “running away” from what you don’t? How would your life be different?
If you need help, if you feel you’re ready to take your desires seriously, you can check out my Dream Design Course right here.
Looking for Private Coaching? I’d love to hear more about you. Please drop me a line via the contact form or feel free to join my waitlist here.
About the author:
Katrine Horn is a speaker and life coach who guides women to create the life of their dreams, to recognize their intrinsic value and release the illusion that life is a struggle. Katrine teaches women how to manage their emotions leaving them free to embrace opportunity when it comes their way. She helps them enter their Zone of Excellence where there are able to step aside to allow their highest good to find them.
Join the Choosing Happiness FB group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ChoosingHappiness/
